After Benazir
July 15, 2008
Next Door to War. Tariq Ali has an excellent article on Pakistan in the new issue of the London Review of Books (the best publication out there). For anyone with interest in the region’s politics this article should be a must-read. In it he also reviews the book by war-pimp Ahmed Rashid, and Crossed Swords: Pakistan, Its Army, and the Wars within by Shuja Nawaz.
To recapitulate. After Benazir Bhutto was assassinated last December, her will was read out to the family’s assembled political retainers. Her 19-year-old son, Bilawal, inherited the Pakistan People’s Party, but until he came of age her husband, Asif Zardari, would act as regent. The general election, postponed following her death, took place in February. The immediate impact of the stunning electoral defeat suffered by General Musharraf’s political party and his factotums was to dispel the disillusionment of the citizenry. Not for long. Musharraf is still clinging on to the presidency; Zardari is running the government with the help of his old cronies; the judges dismissed by Musharraf have still not been reinstated; the economy is a mess; and the US Air Force has started dropping bombs on the North-West Frontier Province again. Poor Pakistan.
I urge you to pick a copy to read the rest.
